The Big Freeze: how racing battled the coldest winter with muck and shovels

It's unlikely that John Profumo paid much attention to the state of British racing during the early months of 1963. Christine Keeler's pronouncements on the matter were also conspicuous only by their absence, as the nation pondered the effects of having a Secretary of State for War who had been conducting an illicit relationship with a young woman while she simultaneously consorted with a Soviet naval attache.

The Cold War was at its height and this sexual breach of national security was a far juicier story than any weather-related cancellation of a bunch of race meetings. Anyway, the Beatles had not long released their first single, which may have provided welcome relief in the media for Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and certainly some variety for the great and good of Fleet Street.

It truly was a different world back then. The internet was not even a twinkle in the eye of non-existent computer scientists; credit cards were only just being introduced into the country by American Express and horseracing was far from being the global concern it has grown into today.